


Nature's Masterpieces

by stevergrsno (noxlunate)



Series: Family Matters [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Adoption, Curtain Fic, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Family, Family Fluff, Fluff, Happy Steve Bingo, Idiots in Love, Kid Fic, M/M, Slice of Life, Snow, Snow Angels, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 01:15:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16546001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxlunate/pseuds/stevergrsno
Summary: “Snow.” Ella says solemnly, pointing towards the window and the white fluff drifting down to gather in piles outside.“Yep. That’d be the fluffy cold white stuff out there.” Steve agrees, “We can go play in it when Pops comes home.”Ella sighs in a way that Steve is 110% sure she’s gotten from Bucky, presses a hand to Steve’s face and says, “Daddy,listen.”In which Steve has a precocious as hell three year old, snow ball fights are had, snow angels are made, and the future is talked about.





	Nature's Masterpieces

**Author's Note:**

> Election coverage is making me sad so have some absolutely unrepentant fluff. 
> 
> Written for the "snow angels" square for my Happy Steve Bingo card. This should hopefully be able to be read as a stand alone but I'm definitely not gonna argue if you want to go read Captain America And The Accidental Baby Acquisition first.

Ella’s third winter with Steve and Bucky, she develops what Steve might call an obsession with snow. It’s not like this is even her first snow ever. Steve and Bucky have tromped her around through it the past two years, setting her atop piles of the stuff and taking dozens of pictures, and spending a lot more time making snowmen themselves than Ella spends showing any amount of interest in the activity. 

They don’t spend a whole lot of the winter in Brooklyn, because it’s not like either of them are particularly fond of the cold and Bucky’s always up for an excuse to go to Wakanda, but they spend enough of it at home that they’ve introduced their daughter to all the normal winter activities. She hasn’t ever really seemed all that interested. 

This year though she presses her hands to the windows and stares out at the world with giant brown eyes, her mouth dropped into a tiny ‘o’ like there’s something magical and surprising out there. 

Steve lets her do it for a long while, but there comes a point when it surpasses the realms of what his three year old’s attention span can normally handle and Ella’s still seeming fascinated. Also he’s a little worried for her tiny hands where they’re pressed against the cold glass. 

“What’s up baby girl?” Steve asks, slipping his hands under her armpits and pulling her up, twisting her to settle on his hip. 

“Snow.” Ella says solemnly, pointing towards the window and the white fluff drifting down to gather in piles outside. 

“Yep. That’d be the fluffy cold white stuff out there.” Steve agrees, “We can go play in it when Pops comes home.” 

Ella sighs in a way that Steve is 110% sure she’s gotten from Bucky, presses a hand to Steve’s face and says, “Daddy,  _ listen.”  _

Steve puts on his very best listening face and resists the urge to nom on her tiny hand. According to Ella, nomming is no longer allowed as of three weeks ago. Steve is doing his very best to remember this is just what growing up involves and not be truly devastated by this development. “I’m listening.” 

“I wanna play _now.”_ Ella pronounces, like she is queen of the castle and able to dictate these sort of things. In her defense, Bucky and Steve are normally wrapped very firmly around her pudgy little finger. 

“Mmmh I’ll take that into consideration.” Steve says and squishes her against him while he makes loud, obnoxious thinking noises that send Ella into a fit of giggles. “Nope, I think it’s lunchtime instead.” 

“Dino nuggets?” Ella asks. 

“Always. One day you’re going to turn into a dino nugget.” Steve says, possibly truly fearing that eventuality. It’s been three straight months of nothing but dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets for lunch. Steve’s starting to wish she’d move on to hot dogs at this rate. 

“And then I go rawr and eat people nuggets.” Ella says and chomps on Steve’s shoulder as Steve nods like he knows exactly what she’s talking about. 

 

By the time Bucky gets home lunch has been eaten, dishes have been done, Ella is sound asleep for her afternoon nap, and Steve is dozing on the couch. 

Steve becomes aware of the world again when he’s nudged over slightly, Bucky squeezing into the space between Steve and the couch. 

“Hi,” Steve mumbles, twisting until he can press his face into Bucky’s throat and press a kiss there. 

“Shhh, go back to sleep.” Bucky says, voice soft and convincing as he rubs a hand up and down Steve’s back. 

Steve doesn’t question it, just drifts right back off in his quiet little home. 

 

When he wakes up next it’s to the sight of Ella sitting on his stomach and Bucky standing at the end of the couch in his puffiest jacket. It makes him look like a marshmallow and Steve wants to bite at his soft spots just a little. 

Ella bounces a little, easily distracting Steve from any such thoughts. 

“Daddy, Daddy, Daddydaddydaddy!” She chants until Steve groans and over dramatically throws an arm across his eyes, letting out a very fake snore. “Papa’s home. Snow time! You  _ promised.”  _

‘You promised’ is going to be Steve’s death knell, he knows it. 

The second his daughter uses those two words Steve’s done for. Even now he’s finally sitting up, dumping Ella into his lap. 

“Alright, alright, what’s on the agenda first? Beach day? Sand castles? Burying your pops in the sand?” One of Steve’s favorite Ella faces is the one she makes when she thinks Steve is being  _ truly  _ ridiculous, which means he strives to be as ridiculous as possible sometimes. 

Ella doesn’t disappoint, giving Steve the best ‘ _ are you kidding me?’  _ look he’s seen outside of Bucky Barnes. “Daddy,  _ no.  _ We’re making snowmen.” She declares with far more authority than Steve thinks should be allowed in a three year old. 

She wiggles off Steve, practically waddling to the door in her giant pink, puffy jacket and snow pants then turning to look at Steve and Bucky expectantly. 

“Did you ever think we’d be spending our lives getting bossed around by a three year old?” Steve asks as he sets about bundling up into a jacket and shoving his feet into boots. 

“Not even for a second.” Bucky says, sounding almost impossibly fond. 

 

Ella’s sheer exuberance for the snow doesn’t actually make Steve  _ like  _ the cold. He still wishes he was somewhere warmer instead of knee deep in snow in the back courtyard for their building, snow up around his ankles and his nose already going numb. He does however come to the conclusion, watching Bucky teach Ella how to work the snow between her hands to create a snowball, that the cold is  _ worth  _ it if it means Ella is happy.

“And now,” Bucky says, hefting a snowball with a look in his eyes that Steve definitely doesn't trust, “We throw all of these at your dad.” 

“Wait, now, let’s just all be calm and rational and think about this first.” Steve says in his best hostage negotiation voice. 

Even his best negotiation skills won’t save him now however, because with a look of maniacal glee his tiny daughter proves herself a traitor, screeches out an “ATTACK!” and starts flinging snowballs at him right alongside Bucky. 

Ella’s snowballs veer wildly off course pretty much the moment they leave her hand, but Steve’s pretty sure Bucky’s never met a target he couldn’t hit dead on, so the first snowball smacks him straight in the face and after that it’s pretty much a whirlwind of snow flying as Steve scoops up snow to retaliate. 

Steve focuses his assault on Bucky, pretending not to notice Ella very badly sneaking around his side and then throwing a snowball right at Steve’s back. 

He very dramatically flails forward, landing on his face in the snow and then rolling onto his back, clutching at his chest in an even more dramatic imitation of death. 

“The light, I see the light! Betrayal! Felled by my only daughter, the apple of my eye, my very best girl.” Steve turns his head to the side so that his grin is hidden from his giggling daughter, though not from Bucky who’s shaking his head at him. 

“Anybody ever tell you you’re the most dramatic fucker on this planet?” Bucky asks and Steve gives him a dark look at the swear. Ella had apparently used the phrase ‘you’ve got to be shitting me’ at preschool last week and Steve had had to endure a young woman clearly struggling with attempting to lecture Captain America. 

Steve blames Bucky for it entirely. 

“I’m dying here and you’re insulting me?” Steve asks instead of addressing their new rules of ‘we do not curse in front of our daughter so that nice ladies at Ella’s preschool don’t think we’re terrible parents.’ 

“Eh, you’ve died before. Didn’t stick.” 

“We’re immortal.” Ella says seriously, climbing onto Steve’s chest and perching herself there while snow does it level best to sink through the back of Steve’s jacket. 

“How do you know that word? You’re three, you know that right?” Steve asks, very much not about to explain mortality and how Ella is not in fact an immortal being to his three year old.  

“And a  _ half.”  _ Ella declares and Steve has to work very hard to not think about the fact that three and a half is significantly more than just three and soon she’ll be four and then five and then ten and then sixteen and then thirty and with a family of her own and Steve and Bucky will be left alone with two cats and each other. 

“Right, right, the half is very important.” Steve agrees easily. 

Ella seems satisfied, or at the very least her whims have changed as easily as they ever do because she’s climbing off of Steve and flopping backwards into the snow next to him. 

“Snow angels.” She says, waving her hand at Steve in what is a very clear order. “You too Papa.” 

“Snow angels with my angels? How could I resist?” Bucky asks, joining Steve and Ella in the snow and never missing a chance to be a cheesy son of a bitch.

“You’re ridiculous.” Steve says, fond, his fingertips brushing against Bucky’s as they move their arms up and through the snow. 

 

Later, when they’re dry and warm and Ella has been safely tucked into her bed for the night, Steve curls into his favorite spot, tucked right into Bucky’s side. It had taken some arranging to get it perfect after Steve got the serum, but by now it’s as easy as anything to squish right up against Bucky’s side, Bucky’s arm draping over Steve’s shoulders as Steve slumps down just enough that he can tuck his face into the crook of Bucky’s neck. Nearly a century later and Bucky still bitches about Steve’s beak cutting off his air supply, but he never makes any attempt to move so Steve remains convinced it’s all for show. 

“You ever think about having another?” Steve asks, words a little slow and fuzzy. The metal fingers scratching through the fine hairs at the back of Steve’s neck are lulling him into something that feels more than a little melty and soft. 

“Nah,” Bucky answers, suspiciously light, twisting his fingers into the longer pieces of Steve’s hair in what is very clearly a distraction technique. 

“ _ Liar.”  _ Steve accuses, pulling back to give Bucky his best Captain America Is Disappointed In You, Son look. Bucky is, as always, completely unmoved. “You  _ have.”  _

“The world doesn’t drop an Ella on your doorstep every day.” Bucky says and Steve frowns at him, because he  _ knows  _ Bucky and this is definitely one of those  _ things.  _ Those Bucky thinks his life with Steve and Ella is so good he’s not allowed to ask for anything more  _ things.  _

(Steve has those  _ things  _ himself, because his life is more than he ever could have imagined, but this is a moment where he’s going to conveniently forget that.) 

“They sure don’t,” Steve agrees, resuming his spot with his face pressed nice and snug into Bucky’s throat, “Ella’s one of a kind, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go wrangle ourselves up a couple more one-of-a-kind kids.” 

“God, you always wanted a whole baseball team didn’t you?” Bucky asks in that fake ‘what am I going to do with you?’ sort of voice he gets sometimes when Steve’s doing something he wants to pretend he’s not absolutely and entirely willing and ready to go along with. 

“A baseball team seems a little excessive.” Steve says, though he doesn’t exactly argue that Bucky’s  _ wrong.  _ Growing up just him and his Ma, and watching Bucky and his sisters had always meant Steve had some vague, half formed dreams of being a part of a big family. 

“We’d have to find a bigger place.” Bucky says after a long moment and Steve feels the smile stretching across his face where he’s pressed it into Bucky’s neck. 

“Of course.” 

“And we’d have to talk to Ella first. Make sure she’s okay with it.” 

“Absolutely.” 

“And find a proper adoption agency. No more of this a baby gets dropped on your doorstep and you get to keep it because you’re Captain Fucking America bullshit.” 

“Wouldn’t dream of doing anything else.” Steve says and kisses Bucky before he can set any more terms and conditions. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hi this is definitely turning into a slice of life series about Steve and Bucky and their cute as hell family. Expect more of this shit eventually. Also come chat with me on [tumblr](http://stevergrsno.tumblr.com/tagged/my-writing), you can even slide into my ask box and leave me ideas for more cute Steve/Bucky family goodness if you want.


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